Booze and Burn Page 3

  ‘I’ll be comin’ to that. Will you come on through?’

  ‘I’m all right here, ta.’ I were far from all right if you must know. You would be and all if you had to stand for fucking yonks with your trolleys full of fag packets.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘No ta. Er…I just had one.’

  ‘Oh well, if you’re sure…’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘it’s a bit…’ He reached past us and put the CLOSED sign up, then pulled down the blind. ‘She’s started goin’ out. On the town, like. I can’t control her, Royston. Are you sure I can’t get you some tea?’

  ‘Yer all right.’

  ‘I’m lucky if I sees her at all most days. Well, that ain’t rightly true. It ain’t lucky to have yer own daughter hold you to ransom, is it? Always after a fiver here and a tenner there. She’s bleedin’ us dry. Liftin’ off the shelves an’ all, she is. Look around you—stock ain’t been low as this since the day this shop opened. She’s till-liftin’ and all. I’m losing me grip. She’s ruinin’ us, Royston.’

  I weren’t used to being called by my given name so many times in so short a space. I wanted to tell him to call us Blake like the rest of Mangel do and did and always will, only there were summat of a more pressing nature to sound him about first. ‘But, Doug,’ I says. ‘I’m sorry to hear about yer daughter and that, but I don’t see where I comes in.’

  ‘I were coming to that, Royston. I needs your help. God knows I needs somebody’s help. And you’re the best man, as I sees it.’

  That were funny, I were thinking. Last time we’d spoke he’d told us different. Going by what he’d said back then you’d think us fit for fuck all. Unless summat nasty needs doing, course.

  ‘See, I needs summat doing. Of a specific nature.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And that’ll be…?’

  He looked behind him. He pulled the blind aside and checkd out there and all. Then he looked behind him again. ‘I needs a feller sortin’ out.’

  ‘Sortin’ out?’

  ‘Aye. Seen to.’

  ‘Seen to?’

  ‘You know, done over.’

  3

  CRIME WAVE CONTINUES

  Steve Dowie, Crime Editor

  Yesterday saw seven domestic burglaries, eleven car thefts, six muggings, and two armed robberies as the current spate of petty misdemeanours went on. All witnesses described youths alone or in pairs, with one armed-robbery gang of four.

  I spoke to Bob Gromer, proprietor of Gromer Wines & Tobacco in Cutler Road. ‘Aye,’ he said, rubbing his shiny pate. ‘Younguns, they was. Four of em, all wearing balaclavas. Tall one were pointing a sawn-off shotgun at us. Reminded us of the old days, it did, when that Tommy Munton were up to his tricks.’

  I asked him if he had noticed anything strange about the robbers. ‘Summat odd? What sort o’ question is that? Who’d you say you was again?’

  I showed him my credentials and repeated the question. Something in their eyes perhaps?

  ‘Never mind that. What I want to know is how lads aged thirteen or so gets their paws on a shotgun. Mangel ain’t the sort o’ town to have guns and the like. Your typical robber will come in this here shop with a stocking over his head and a lot of shouting. I can handle that. I ain’t been standing behind this counter these past thirty years without knowing how to handle a thug and his shouting. Spanks em with this, I does…’

  Mr. Gromer reached under the counter and produced what looked like a cricket bat with ten or twelve four-inch nails driven through it. A nail at the end pointed outwards like a bayonet. He swung the bat through the air, the end-nail coming within an inch of my nose. ‘Oh aye, I’ve had all kinds try it on in here. Let em come, I says. Let em come and meet my Betty.’ He thrust the bat at my leg. I cried out as the end-nail pierced the polyester knit of my trouser. ‘Fancy yourself, does you, you there with your pen and your bits of paper? Come on, here’s me till. Try and get past us. Try and get past me and Betty.’

  This reporter made his excuses and left, wondering when was the last time he had had a tetanus jab.

  At the Infirmary I signed in and took a seat in the waiting area. I turned to the elderly gentleman on my right and asked him what he thought of the crime epidemic ravaging our town. Maybe he had been burgled himself? Or robbed in broad daylight by cowardly youths?

  ‘**** off and mind your own business,’ he said.

  I turne to the fellow on my left, a young man of no more than sixteen summers. Perhaps he could tell me of the pressures facing a young person today, that they should turn to crime? Perhaps he himself was a criminal?

  He raised his ashen face out of his hands and looked at me. His eyes sparkled weakly like dusty light bulbs in the upper rooms of a condemned house. I searched them for something, the thing that the two ladies had seen but failed to name. But there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  ‘I been pissin’ blood,’ he said, grinning. Then frowning. ‘Lend us a tenner, eh?’

  Doug had got that bit right. If there were one thing I were good at it were doing fellers over. All right, all right…it were true—I’d gone through a rough patch a while back whereby a couple of bastards had got the better of us, but they’d had guns and chainsaws and that, which ain’t playing fair in my book.

  You what? Forget it, pal. I ain’t telling that story no more. I’ve told it enough times already—especially to the coppers—and I’m sick of it. You wants to know about the guns and chainsaws, go ask someone else. Everyone knows round here. Anyhow, where the fuck were I?

  Oh aye, that’s it. I were good at doing fellers over. Fucking good. I’d been getting meself down the gym a bit more regular of late and now I were nigh on perfect—twenty-odd stone of pure rock.

  ‘What makes you reckon I’ll do a feller over for you?’ I says to Doug. ‘Sayin’ I’m a thug or summat, is you?’

  He went to say summat, then stopped. You could see him thinking for a little while. Then he goes: ‘I’ll not call you a thug nor any other such thing. All I knows is you’re a big feller who can mix it a bit. I’ve said it before, Royston, and I’ll say it again: you can’t hide what you are in a place like Mangel. No one can. A man crawls from cradle to…Anyhow, I won’t bore you with that. I knows you can help us if you so chooses. Question is, will you?’

  There was all kinds of gestures me arms and legs was gagging to make. But I couldn’t do none of em, burdened as I were with Doug’s groceries. So I had to put it all across with me voice. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘“Perhaps” meanin’ you will if suitably induced, am I right in thinkin’?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Here, I’ll show you. Come on now.’ He trotted off out back. I took a deep one and followed, but not trotting.

  Weren’t so creepy as you might imagine back there. Not once he’d turned the light on. We was in a stockroom, though stock was mostly empty boxes. Next to a tatty armchair in the corner were a little table. A portable telly atop it were on but the sound turned down. Looked like the war were on, though you couldn’t ever be sure them days. In the middle of the floor were a pile of summat or other with a scummy sheet draped over it. ‘Here we are,’ he says pulling the sheet off.

  It were summat to see, I can tell you. I dunno how many tinnies was there but they’d keep a man in lager for a oodly length of time, for surely. ‘There’s four hundred here,’ he says doing me sums for us. He stood back and folded his birdy arms.

  I picked up a four-pack and had a gander. I dunno what I were on the lookout for but it’s a foolish man who don’t go through the motions. And it were lucky I did. ‘Woss this?’ I says, pointing at the bottom of a can. ‘Past the sell-by, this is.’

  ‘Only by four days. Makes no odds.’

  ‘Still past it, fuck sake. Tryin’ to pull one on us, is you?’

  ‘Last another six month at least. Tastes just same, Royston. Better, in fact—improves with age, t
his particular one do.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Don’t want it?’

  I cracked it open and emptied half of it down me neck, trying not to lift my elbow too high. ‘Never said that,’ I says. ‘Just don’t reckon it’s quite enough is all, for what the job is.’ I drained the rest then let out a belch that had the light bulb swaying. ‘I mean, feller can’t drink without a smoke, can he?’

  Doug glared at us a while. I opened another. Not bad, it were. Maybe he were bang on about improving with age. I were, after all, so perhaps the lager were and all? I were looking forward to putting it to the test, if I could drag out four hundred cans long enough to age em a bit.

  ‘That’s yer lot,’ he says, plonking two trade boxes of bennies atop the beer stack, which made four hundred fags.

  I shook me swede. ‘Don’t care for bennies. Smokes Number One, don’t I?’

  ‘I seem to be out of Embassy Number One of a sudden. It’s Bensons or nuthin’. I got some Consulate somewhere if you wants them.’

  I shook me swede again. Consulates is for birds. I’d made do with bennies in the past and I’d just have to do it again. Mind you, four hundred weren’t so many. ‘That’ll only last us ten days,’ I says. ‘I’ll need more.’ I tossed the two empty tins in the bin. ‘Nice pop, mind.’

  He looked at us for a while, chewing his lip. I got started on another tin—no point wasting time. ‘You’ll take what I’m offering,’ he says of a sudden.

  I stopped mid-gulp and turned my eyes on him, not caring much for the edge in his voice.

  ‘You’ll take it,’ he went on, ‘and you’ll do the job for us. T’ain’t a hard job, after all. Mangel ain’t a place a man can hide in. All you has to do is foller my Mona into town and see who she consorts with. And when you finds him, I know you’ll prosecute him thoroughly.’

  I belched and opened me gob.

  ‘No,’ he says, cutting us dead. ‘Four hundred beer cans and four hundred cigarettes is what you’ll get. Plus the sundry items stowed away there under yer overcoat. We has a deal, Royston, don’t us?’

  I shrugged but couldn’t look him in the eye. Bastard. Fancy stringing us along like that about the sundry items. Trapped us, he faiy had. Hauled us out the water like a twenty-pound barbel. I ought to break his fucking face, cheeky cunt. He can stow his rotten lager and ten days’ worth of fags up his backside. I turned and trudged out, rattling a bit now but not caring.

  ‘You can come back for this once you’ve dropped yer vittles off,’ he says, draping the sheet back over my gear. ‘Only half now, mind.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Half on completion. Fair, ennit?’

  I shrugged again. It were fair as anything else I could compare it to. I trudged out onto the street, the bell tinkling and the door creeping shut behind us. Weren’t such a bad little job when you looked at it in the cold light of an overcast day in Mangel. I got stocked up with essentials and all I had to do were a bit of thorough persecution, as Doug had put it just now. See, I knew who this feller were he wanted slapping. It were the outsider from last night, wernit? And Mona were the bird talking shite outside Hoppers. She’d took her glasses off and tarted herself up a bit is all. I’d thought her familiar at the time. And him there last night in his motor, driving up and down our street—that’s the feller dropping her off at home, ennit?

  Aye, this were a piss job. Doug might have shoved us a bit, but I’d have said aye anyhow. All them smokes and tinnies? How can a man say no under such pressure?

  Tell you summat, mind—I wish I had said no.

  ‘All right, Rache,’ I says.

  ‘Hiya, Blake.’ She were standing behind the bar, doing her nails. ‘Sal called for you again. Gonna call her back or what?’

  ‘Giz a fuckin’ pint,’ I says. The good bit about being manager and head doorman of Hoppers were that I could give orders to the staff. I could order Rache to get us a fucking pint.

  ‘You what?’ she says.

  ‘Come on, don’t fuck about.’

  ‘I ain’t fuckin’ about,’ she says, pointing her nail file at us. ‘You knows how to ask for summat and that ain’t the way.’ She went back to her nails.

  ‘All right, all right, just giz a pint…please.’

  She pulled us one and plonked it in front of us. I sat a while, supping and thinking. Now that I were in Hoppers the idea of chasing some tosser for a few tinnies and some fags seemed a mite unseemly. I mean, I were boss of Mangel’s premier piss house and therefore a prominent figure in the community. I wore a smart DJ and a nice big sovereign on me finger. I ought to be hiring donkeys for donkey work, not doing it meself. But here I were, henchman to a shopkeeper. It weren’t right. But if there’s one thing you ought to know about Royston Blake it’s he keeps his word. Always. You can have his knackers on a string if you find otherwise.

  ‘Rache,’ I says. ‘Watch the door for a bit, mate.’

  ‘Watch the door? I’m a barmaid, not a blinkin’ doorman. Watch it yerself.’

  ‘Blake, come back here. You can’t…’

  I went for a slash before going in, as were my habit. The Paul Pry were a place for swilling, not getting up every half hour to splash your boots. I slashed for about a minute, eyes wandering over the scribblings on the tiles above the piss wall. The stuff about meself never bothered us no more. There’d been a time not so long back when a Blake-related scrawling would have us either punching walls or crying into me lager, depending on the weather. But them dark days was long gone. I’d come to realise that, being a local legend, I had to expect a certain amount of coverage on the walls and doors of bogs all over town. To be honest with you I’d come to like it. I didn’t even mind the bollocks about me being an arse bandit, though it were about as far from the truth as the moon is from the sun. But these ones here in the Paul Pry was all phrased with a certain respect, the Pry being well-known as my local. And they was as familiar to us as the smell of my own methane. Except a new one, slap bang in front of me face:

  WANNA GET JOEYD?

  SEE THE J-MAN.

  DOWN THE ARKY

  ‘Who the fuck is the J-Man?’ I says to Nathan the barman.

  He started pulling us one, thinking about it. That alone were a sure sign he didn’t know the answer. ‘Can’t say as I’ve heard of him, Blakey. And mind yer language, ladies bein’ present. Entertainer, is he?’

  I got started on the pint. ‘Who?’

  ‘Jim Wossname.’

  ‘Oh, the J-Man? Dunno.’

  ‘Well who is he then?’

  ‘Dunno, I were askin’ you.’

  ‘How ought I to know?’

  ‘Come on, Nathan. Knows everythin’, you does. Feller can’t fart—’

  ‘Aye, I’ve heard it before, Blakey. It made no sense that time and even less now. And I’ve gat summat else to say to you, before you answers back. Why ain’t you at Hoppers?’

  ‘Early, ennit? No trouble happens before eight on a weekday.’

  ‘And who’s on the door?’

  ‘Rache.’

  ‘Rache?’

  ‘Aye. Barmaid. Big tits.’

  ‘Thass no way to refer to a woman, Blake.’

  ‘But she has got big tits.’

  ‘That may be so, but there’s a way to refer to a woman and that ain’t it. Here’s a tip fer you, Blakey: treat a woman well and the world will unfold before you. Heared it before? Didn’t reckon so.’

  ‘I has, actually.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘My old man used to say it.’

  ‘Your old man? That old sot killed his missus—your mam. That ain’t treatin’ no woman right now, is it?’

  ‘He fuckin’ never.’

  ‘Easy on that pint glass there. You’ll crack him.’

  ‘Well…it’s a fuckin’ lie. You oughta know better.’

  ‘Oh aye? Why’d you kill him, then?’

  ‘That’s bollocks an’ all. Who telled you that, you fucker?’

  He
didn’t reply to this at first, which weren’t a complete surprise to us. Nathan weren’t hard nor nothing but you didn’t want to tangle with him, for one or two reasons, the first being that he were my boss. Sort of. So I thought it best to change the subject, being as he were right about me dad anyhow. ‘Anyhow,’ I says, ‘I’ll be back on the door in a minute. I just came down here to ask you summat. Other than that thing about Jim Wossname.’

  ‘The J-Man.’

  ‘That’s what I says, ennit?’

  ‘No, you says “Jim Wossname.”’

  I plonked my glass down. ‘It were you says “Jim Wossname.”’

  He shook his head and picked up my empty. ‘This is yer last one,’ he says. ‘I want you back on that Hoppers door sharpish. I didn’t acquire that concern to have it run into the ground by absent door staff.’

  ‘I ain’t runnin’ her into no ground. Fuckin’ hell, Nathan, go easy on us, will yer? I got that place tickin’ like a carriage clock. Premier piss house in Mangel, she is these days.’

  ‘Premier piss house, you calls it? Well that might well be, if premier piss house means folks goes there for a piss. But premier drinkin’ house it surely ain’t.’

  ‘Woss you on about? Packed nigh on every night, she is. Weekends you can’t see the floor for folks standin’ on it.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that. In fact I knows it, but just cos they’re standin’ there don’t foller they’re spendin’. They ain’t, Blake. Not at my bar anyhow.’

  I noticed the fresh pint under me nose and picked it up. Not cos I were thirsty nor nothing but I wanted a minute to think.

  Not spending at the bar? All right, your typical punter in there were a bit younger these days and young means skint in most cases, but hadn’t I been throwing my weight around more than ever of late, fighting the civic menace of public drunkenness? And how could they get pissed if they ain’t buying?

  ‘Gat summat to say about that, have you?’ Nathan were saying. ‘I’m bankin’ half as much a week as I did last year. Explain that to us, can you?’ He let us stew for a bit then says: ‘And don’t fret—I kows it ain’t down to fingers in tills. Stock ain’t goin’ down, Blake, folks just ain’t drinkin’. Or if they is, it ain’t my beer.’